Trade & contract
We work for the people your customers think did the work.
Alphabet® is a contract shop. Distributors, uniform suppliers, screen printers, sporting goods stores and other embroiderers send us decoration and ship it out under their own name. That has been the business since 1984.
Trade terms
AES / TRADE- Ships as
- Your name and return address, on request
- Goods
- Yours, your supplier’s, or sourced by us
- Approval
- Sew-out swatch before every production run
- ASI
- Member pricing extended to ASI-numbered distributors
- Artwork
- Stored under a design number for reorders
- Pricing
- Never published — approved accounts only
- To open one
- A phone call. We set the account up by hand.
- Turnaround
- Confirmed with Alphabet before launch
The terms
What a trade account gets you.
Blind-label shipping
Orders ship under your company name and return address, with your paperwork in the carton. Nothing identifies Alphabet as the decorator. Set it once on your account and it applies to every order after that.
Customer-supplied goods
Send blanks in, or have your supplier drop-ship to our Xenia dock. We count them in against your paperwork, inspect for mill defects before decoration, and report shortages the day they land — not on the invoice.
Sew-out approval before production
Every new design is stitched on the same fabric you are running and sent for approval before a single production piece is hooped. Density, pull compensation and thread choice get settled on a swatch instead of on your goods.
ASI-member discounts
Distributors carrying an ASI number get ASI-member pricing here, even though we are not ASI members ourselves. Put your number on the application and it goes on the account.
Your artwork, stored and numbered
Files we digitise for you are yours. Each one is stored under a design number with its size, fabric and placement recorded, so a reorder is a phone call rather than a re-quote. Send your own DST or EMB and we will store that too.
Repeat orders
Quote the design number and the style, and the job goes straight to scheduling. Approved accounts can see stored designs, order status and past invoices in the portal.
Wholesale pricing is never public.
It goes to approved accounts through the portal, alongside your order status, stored designs and past invoices. Approval is manual — someone here reads every application.
Common questions
Before you apply.
- Do you sell to the trade only?
- Primarily. The large majority of what leaves this building goes out under a distributor’s, uniform supplier’s or another decorator’s name. We do take retail and one-off work, but the shop is built around contract production.
- Is wholesale pricing published anywhere?
- No. Wholesale pricing goes to approved trade accounts through the portal. Publishing it would put your margin on the open web.
- Can you decorate goods I already own?
- Yes — that is most of what we do. Ship them in or have your blanks supplier send them direct.
- Will you work with another embroidery shop?
- Regularly. Overflow and capacity work for other embroiderers and monogrammers is a standing part of the business, and it is exactly the kind of work blind shipping exists for.
- What if I already have my logo digitised?
- Send the file. We will run it, and if we can see it is going to sew badly on your fabric we will tell you before we commit your goods.
More in the full FAQ, or read how ABC Digitizing™ handles your files in the artwork guide.
Talk to the shop first?
Call and ask for whoever handles contract work. Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST.